Cocoa Beach or Marco Island?

Marco Island has the gentler and more beautiful beach. Its crescent of fine sand faces a shallow, calm Gulf with no real surf, and the sunsets go down over the water. Tigertail's lagoon and sandbar are good for wading and shelling, and the wild sand of Keewaydin is a short boat ride away.

Cocoa Beach faces the open Atlantic, so the water is greenish and there is always some surf. That suits surfers and long walks on firm sand, but rip currents mean swimmers should stay near the lifeguards by the pier.

Neither place is somewhere you would travel to for the food, and both come down to seafood by the water. Cocoa Beach is the more casual of the two: rock shrimp from the port, fish tacos and big breakfasts before a surf, eaten at beach grills or at the chains along the main road. Marco Island leans towards grouper, oysters and stone crab in the cooler months, in resort dining rooms or at the dockside shacks of Goodland, and Naples is close by for a smarter dinner.

Both towns are thin on sights, and what each offers is very different. At Cocoa Beach the one real draw is watching a rocket climb from Cape Canaveral, which you can see from the sand. Marco Island has a proper small museum that covers the Calusa people and the carved wooden figures found on the island in the 1890s, but serious galleries mean a drive to Naples.

Cocoa Beach has a livelier evening. Around the pier and the short downtown strip there are beach bars, sports bars and decks with cover bands, and spring break and long weekends bring a younger, louder crowd, though it still winds down fairly early.

Marco Island goes quiet soon after sunset drinks and dinner. A few resort lounges and marina bars stay open for a mellow, older crowd, and Goodland's dockside bars are at their busiest on winter weekend afternoons rather than at night.

Marco Island has the wilder setting. It sits at the edge of the Ten Thousand Islands, so mangrove paddling, dolphin boat trips and some of Florida's best fishing for snook and tarpon are right on hand. Everglades National Park, Big Cypress and the cypress boardwalks of the Fakahatchee Strand are all within an hour.

Cocoa Beach still has plenty to offer. You can kayak among manatees in the Indian River Lagoon, paddle through glowing bioluminescent water on summer nights, and visit the Merritt Island refuge for its alligators, winter birds and nesting turtles. Its surf is a bonus the Gulf side cannot match.

Cocoa Beach has the outing nobody else can offer: the Kennedy Space Center, half an hour away, with the Saturn V and the shuttle Atlantis. Orlando's theme parks and the calmer lakeside town of Winter Park are about an hour inland, and historic Cocoa Village is just across the causeway.

From Marco Island the trips are pleasant rather than memorable. Choices include Naples' old streets and galleries, the old trading post at Chokoloskee, the Edison and Ford Winter Estates at Fort Myers, and the shell beaches of Sanibel a little further on.

Cocoa Beach keeps children busier. Surf lessons, rocket launches, the space centre and a day at the Orlando parks are all within easy reach, and condos with pools and kitchens are easy to find.

Marco Island has one real advantage: shallow, calm water that is safer for small children than the Atlantic surf. Beyond wading, shelling and dolphin trips, though, the nearest things built for children are the zoo and the children's museum in Naples.

You will need a car in both places, and the layout is what differs. Cocoa Beach is a long strip along one road, where a bicycle covers downtown and the pier, and the nearest major airport is about an hour away at Orlando. Marco Island is a compact, flat island with cycle paths along its main roads and an airport a little closer, but its single bus link to Naples is about all the public transport there is.

Marco Island comes out ahead, mostly because of Naples next door. Fifth Avenue South and Third Street South have upmarket boutiques and galleries, there are polished open-air malls half an hour away, and the island's own plazas sell resort wear and coastal art.

In Cocoa Beach, shopping means surf gear. There is a huge round-the-clock surf store that has been a landmark since the 1960s, along with boards from local shapers, and Cocoa Village's boutiques for anything else.

Cocoa Beach is the clearly cheaper base. Its motels and older condos stay affordable outside spring and launch weekends, and the casual grills are fair value, although a hire car and the space centre ticket add up.

Marco Island is priced for a well-off winter crowd, with resort rooms and restaurants at their most expensive from January to April. Summer brings much lower rates, and weekly condo rentals help groups, but it never becomes a budget destination.

Marco Island has better access to a real performance, thanks to Naples' performing arts centre and its philharmonic orchestra, though the season is mostly winter. Resort bars also add live guitarists in those months. At Cocoa Beach, live music mostly means cover bands on bar decks. There is a regional arts centre in Melbourne and a playhouse in Cocoa Village, but serious theatregoers head to Orlando.

Marco Island is the better place to unwind properly. Its big beachfront resorts have full-service spas and pools looking out over the Gulf, and the whole island moves at a slow pace. Cocoa Beach has only a few day spas, massage studios and yoga classes on the beach. Its calm comes from early walks on the sand and sunsets over the river, not from pampering.